Auxillaries
by Musafreen
Summary: Where Nico is on a mission and things go horribly, horribly wrong. Or so he'd like to think, at least. Assumes a post HoO Greco-Roman collaboration.


**Notes:** Um, okay. So Roman Camp as I imagined it pre-SoN was not _quite_ like the Roman Camp I read about in SoN. And since quite a few of my post-HoO scenarios rely on the Roman Camp in my head it sort of grafted into the SoN Camp Jupiter and I have this version which is half SoN and half Codex Alera and maybe 1 percent obstructive bureaucracy. Ideally, it should have gotten spotlighted on and explained in _Legion_, but since that fic has been (surprise, surprise) on a standstill for a while now (danged plotholes), you'll have to make do with imagining your own version of the thing. But there really isn't much of it in here except a couple of offhand mentions, so ignoring all references to the crazed Military Camp inside my head would work too. The same may apply to the completely random OC daughter of Mars who's studying Law and in my head looks like a version of Lin Bei Fong.

Oh and also; this is probably canon that just hasn't been mentioned yet, but Roman Campers are not dyslexic in this continuity. Because Latin alphabet has the same letters as the English one and stuff. More or less. Also, the seventy years in hibernation thing means that Nico is not exactly up to date on everyday stuff, even if it's not explicitly spelled out in-fic.

Thirdly, you can blame this fic on Mission to Marzipan (and if you're a fan of In Character, non-romance-centered Nico fics and haven't read his stories, you should go do it _now_ and you'll thank me when you're done), or at least a throwaway line from one of his fics.

**Disclaimer:** It's not enough that I play in your sandbox, now I'm constructing my own version of half your sandbox using your half of the sandbox as a base. My profoundest apologies, r-squared. :( But at least you can take comfort in the fact that apart from the words, none of this will ever belong to me.

* * *

**Auxillaries**

_(which is entirely pointless, even for a oneshot)_

* * *

Over time, he'd gotten used to the weirdness that was his life. To the point where those old days in Westover felt like an LSD-inspired dream whenever he thought about it. Because his life ever being that simple and uncomplicated and normal was enough of a clue to tell him that something had been very, very wrong and the entire thing just felt a little too surreal and calm-before-the-storm for his taste. His very vivid memories of subsequent events didn't help, either.

Anyway, weirdness. Since then, he'd transferred the bloodthirsty cannibalistic (humanoid-eating?) monsters and the freaky Physics-what-Physics shit that happened around him into the 'things which happen all the time' part of his list. Nico Di Angelo might only have been doing the demigod for only a little more than three years, but he'd seen enough strangeness to last him a few dozen lifetimes. Even a dozen average demigod lifetimes, and that should tell you something.

For Nico, weird was normal and vice versa.

Which was why when he fell asleep scouting out a lair of wannabe super-monsters in Brooklyn (the post-Giant-War Greco-Roman collaboration was big on reconnaissance) and woke up with red, itchy, peeling skin, he assumed the worst and promptly downed a canteenful of nectar. Obviously, his methods of hiding hadn't been enough, and obviously at least one of the monsters worshipped Hecate and had cursed him with some form of horrible magical disease.

He panicked a little when his skin remained red, itchy and peeling. He panicked even more when the familiar heat of the nectar made it feel like it was burning too. He dealt with the panic by deciding that recon was for Romans and barging in on the half-prepared monsters and putting the Fear of Hades into them till they broke down and claimed that no, nobody had cursed him and could he please stop doing that fear thing, for Kronos' sake?

Like any self-respecting demigod, Nico mowed down the monsters (and got a broken arm in the process) and reported (_reported,_ for Hades' sake) the entire thing to Mercedes Cinna via IM so he could get his ears chewed out over reconnaissance not being equivalent to massacre and how he was so going to get extra duty for this.

And sure enough, that was exactly what he got. Sometimes he wondered if he could replace Rachel Dare as oracle. Gods knew his black on black was more suitable to the gig that jeans splashed with cheery yellows and pinks and greens.

"Reconnaissance," Mercedes told him, "is not equivalent to direct assault."

"I figured you'd say that."

"That's not an acceptable answer. I hope I will get more satisfactory ones on your future assignments."

"I figured you'd say that too."

Mercy sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. General consensus at CHB was that a Mercy Cinna without her nose-pinching was a Mercy Cinna brainwashed by Gaia. Camp Jupiter didn't really disagree, especially not since she'd been put in charge of coordinat-uh, _advising_ their CHB allies.

You know, he was starting to wonder if prolonged contact between the two Camps wasn't Gaias' masterplan after all. They were _this_ close to murdering each other all the time.

"Greeks," she sounded disgusted, "Reckless, immature, _irresponsible_-"

"I'm sorry, but am I the only one who remembers the whole thing with Gwen and Dakota and the exploding latrines?"

"Not the point!" Mercy growled, "And they were off-field, which makes a lot of difference-"

"Whatever," Nico gave her his best scowl, and mentally congratulated himself when she stiffened. His last attempt had gotten him an unimpressed look, and this was definitely progress, "Considering the fact that one of them put a spell on me and tried to kill me, I'd say they got off easy."

That made her blink, "What?"

"I think I was cursed."

"Do you need help?" Mercy straightened up, hands flying to her laptop, "Assistance? I can have the Trivia disciples set up possible cures, and the Apollo medics; or would you prefer the Greeks? I can send word-"

"It's okay, I'm not dying," Nico told her, "I'd be able to tell. But it's painful and I don't even know what they did to my-"

"Did you interrogate them?"

"Yes," Nico told her, "And they denied it. But-"

"What did they do?"

Nico gaped at her.

"What are you, blind? _Look_ at me!"

"That," Mercy went from concerned to skeptical in the span of half a second, "is the curse?"

"Unless dozing off on duty prompts divine retribution, then yes," Nico scowled again, at scratched at his arm, "Obviously."

Mercy's hand flew from the laptop to her nose, something Nico thought was distinctly unfair. He was the guy suffering here, because he did something that was largely pointless, because the Romans were neurotic little-

"Where were you hiding?" Mercy's voice wavered between exasperated and exhausted.

"What does that have to do with-"

"Answer me."

"Why- fine!" Nico took a deep breath, and pasted on his best scowl, "They're dracnae. Night vision, but hate sunlight. I was on the roof. Happy?"

"Under the sun?"

He shot her a duh look. She looked faaar from impressed.

"In July?"

"What does that have to do with anything?" Nico burst out, "just because I'm not dying- look, it hurts, okay? It itches. And-"

"Di Angelo-"

"_What?_"

"You're not cursed," the added _you moron_ was unspoken, but practically tangible, "You've got sunburn."

Oh.

Well. That was anticlimactic.

"This is sunburn?"

"…Yes."

"But this is _horrible!_"

"Hardly. It's a pretty mild case, from what I can see," Mercy sighed, "You don't even have blisters. I can definitely tell you it's not lethal. And frankly, with your parentage, I'm surprised you didn't get one earlier."

"Hazel doesn't get sunburned."

"Hazel's got melanin on her side. Also, she actually spent enough time outside to get used to the sun," she gave him a pointed look, "Which is something you could try out sometime."

Nico couldn't control his face fast enough to ward of the expression of pure horror that dominate it at this pronouncement.

"I thought as much," Mercy straightened her shoulders, "Well, I've got my tests coming up in a month and can't afford to waste any more time on this. So get out of my sight, slather yourself in Aloe for a few days so that you get back to looking vaguely humanoid, attempt to use sunscreen on future missions, and make sure you send a written report to-"

Nico waved his arm through the IM and pretended not to hear that last bit, in accordance with the general policy at CHB. Because the Romans could try to change the way they ran things and they would be tolerated to an _extent _(because okay, relying on a half-mad old spirit for all your intelligence of the outside world _might _be just the slightest bit risky), but like hell they were forcing a group of dyslexic teenagers into writing reports. The contact with rainbow mist was all it took for the itching to start again with a vehemence.

So. Sunscreen.

Nico absently scratched at his arm again. He vaguely remembered a woman in a black hat (_Mom_, he decided) slathering him with slimy stuff before some sort of beach trip (if the glimpse of a frowning Bianca in one of those ancient bathing suits was an indication). All his memories tended to be disjointed and confusing and inclined to bask in the glow of hindsight, which sucked almost as much as having sunburn did.

The question was, where did an asocial Son of Hades get a bottle of sunscreen from? Where was he even supposed to start? Malls made him twitchy, and he was pretty sure the lonely little tumbledown stores he tended to go into didn't stock anything along the lines of skin-care products.

Of course, he _could_ head his way over to the Aphrodite cabin and ask one of them to lend him a bottle of the thing.

Ha.

No.

He would not be caught dead in the Aphrodite cabin if his _life_ depended on it. His skin didn't even get to vote. No matter how much it itched to get his attention. Reputations, and all that.

The itching immediately intensified. And spread out over his back and his calves.

Nico scratched again, sighed, and decided that consulting people for sunscreen guidance could wait. For now, he was going to find a nice, dark, damp corner of the Underworld and sulk there till his skin went back to normal.

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**End Notes:** Uhm. Pointless, I know. But that's the beauty of oneshots. XD Slice of the demigod life and all that.


End file.
